The invention relates to secured identification documents and method for making them. More particularly, it relates to secured identification documents such as passports, made of paper booklets, or contactless smart cards or RFID tags, made of paper or plastic cards or tickets and which contain personal data of their holder such as his/her name, birth date, address, photograph, etc.
With the development of electronic identity documents, process have been implemented to include electronic devices, comprising an antenna and a radio frequency microcontroller electrically connected to said antenna, inside flexible document pages, flexible document covers, or flexible external layers of smart cards, in an efficient and robust way.
In FIG. 1, a prior art module 10 is embedded inside a pre-laminated inlet 12. The module comprises an integrated circuit 11 affixed onto a support 13. The integrated circuit and its connections are protected by a resin 14. The support 13 has electrical pads 15 connected to the integrated circuit 11. An antenna 16 is etched on a first plastic layer 12A of the inlet. The antenna is connected to electrical contact pads 15. Then a second plastic layer 12B is laminated onto the first layer 12A to create the inlet 12. This second plastic layer 12B recovers antenna 16 and module 10 in order to protect them physically. The inlet 12 is then affixed to a fibrous cover sheet 20 and an internal sheet 19 of a paper booklet constituting a passport for example.
FIGS. 2A and 2B, illustrate another embodiment of a prior art module, named “coil on module”, integrated in a cover sheet of a passport booklet (FIG. 2A) and in a contactless smart card (FIG. 2B). These structures and methods for manufacturing them have been implemented by the applicant. The “coil-on-module” means that the antenna 16 is part of the module itself and not part of a separate body like an inlet plastic sheet 12A as in the first prior art embodiment of FIG. 1. The coil-on-module comprises a flexible substrate 30 on which is etched the antenna and is positioned a radio frequency microcontroller storing identification data, said radio frequency microcontroller being electrically connected to the antenna.
In the embodiment of FIG. 2A, the coil on module is inserted in a multilayer arrangement, in which at least one layer 24, 25 has a cavity 23 incorporating the module 21. Layers incorporating the module are then affixed onto the cover sheet 20 and internal sheet 19 by means of standard glue layers 22, made of pressure sensitive glues or thermo sensitive glues.
In the embodiment of FIG. 2B, the coil on module 10 is embedded between two external flexible layers 32, 33 of a smart card. For that, the module is either incorporated in a cavity of a spacer layer positioned between the two external layers 32, 33, or embedded in a standard glue layer 22.
In both mentioned product types, standard pressure sensitive adhesive such as acrylic glues, or standard thermo sensitive glues such as phenolic glues, are used in order to bond the module and the various other layers.
This results to a good-looking end device, which offer generally a good mechanically behaviour and a high resistance to delamination.
Nevertheless, the device keeps vulnerable against chemical products and particularly against solvent and acids. For example, after one hour soaked in acetone, the different layers can easily been separated without damage of the electronic component or of the external cover.
Thus, it appears easy to a fraudulent person to pull out the module from a passport or from an identification card, by delamination of the constitution layers, and to reuse this module in another falsified passport or identification device.